Saturday, December 16, 2017

In my three short years of
ultrarunning, I’ve run roughly 20 different events. Not one of them compares to
Hellgate. It loses out on “favorite race” to Grindstone – which might cause
some to question my ability to effectively judge the merits of a race – but
when it comes to uniqueness, Hellgate takes the cake.

There’s no one solitary thing that gives Hellgate a leg-up
on other races. It has solid, but not unwieldy, climbs. None of the descents
are particularly excruciating. At times it has great, sweeping views. It’s a
healthy mix of gravel roads, double-track, and single-track. Just an ordinary
race, right?

But then you’ve got the 12:01am start. It’s likely the last
race on everyone’s calendar after a year of hard training and running. Chances
of showing up sick or injured, or both, are not insignificant. The weather is
drastically different from one year to the next. The course tests enough
different running skills that you’re bound to confront a weakness somewhere in
those 66.6 miles. The volunteers, braving the elements, are the best you’ll
ever come across. The limited entry gives the race a family feel – when you drive
into Camp Bethel before the race and when you run in at the end, you’re coming
home. And then there’s the leaves … oh god, the leaves … the endless piles of
knee-high leaves hiding untold numbers of nefarious rocks.

It’s an agglomeration of characteristics, an equal share of
wonderful and awful, all working to build you up, to break you down, to impart
what some might describe as self-shadenfreude, and, perhaps, to leave you with
the sense that, somehow, you will have left Camp Bethel with a better awareness
of who you are as a runner, as a person. Hellgate is Horton’s gift to us all.
Each year we think we know what we’re getting, what will be revealed when the
wrapping paper comes off – joy, suffering, a bond with others, aching muscles,
those damned leaves, and an incredible atmosphere. This year, I ended up with a
bit more: humility, affirmation, self-reflection, and an eagerness for next
year.

Enough with the poetic ramblings … on with the race report!

***DISCLAIMER: What follows is as close to brevity as I'm ever going to get.***

Anticipating 20 degree temps and up to a foot of snow, I
opted for tights. I also opted to put on too many layers, nearly replicating my
clothing choices from last year’s single-digit excursion. I didn't feel warm. Did I just make a stupid mistake?!

The race started and
I immediately tagged along with Matt Thompson. I know he’s a better runner than
me, but the handful of times I’ve started out with him, I’ve never felt
overtaxed. I’d hoped John Andersen and Chris Miller would join us, but from the
get-go I could tell John was more interested in hosting a social hour to start
off the day, and I knew Chris would be somewhere nearby.

I ran in/around Matt and Frank Gonzalez for the early miles.
The pace was comfortable, but I was not! Within 15 minutes I knew it was
nowhere near 20 degrees … yet. I struggled to dig into my jacket and my long
sleeve shirt to grab and peel off my arm warmers by Mile 3 – they were drenched
in sweat. By the time we began Petite’s Climb I was stopping again to peel off
my jacket and throw it in my pack. There could be snow and wind up at 3500’
where I could need it again, but at 1000’ it was just too much clothing. Once I
was down to nothing but a long sleeved midweight I could feel the chill and the
slight breeze perfectly modulate my body temperature. I was finally comfortable
and it was time to get down to business!

I had splits for a sub-11:40 finish which I figured would require
perfect trail conditions and a strong final third of the race. The slightest
difficulty – snow, nutrition lapse, a rough section – and I’d have to pivot to
a sub-12:00 goal. Early on, everything seemed to click. I was in the Top 5, my
effort level felt manageable, and I was hitting the climbs with ease. I ran all
of Petite’s and began gapping Frank as I made my way down to the Terrapin
section of trail. At the bottom, I saw the trail continue on, but also a trail
veer up and off to the right. I couldn’t spot any markers, so I stood around
for about a minute until Frank caught up. We took a couple steps on the
offshoot and saw a streamer in the distance, and we were back on our way!

(If I knew the pic would be this cool, I wouldn't have opted for a cheesy smile and thumbs up. Courtesy of Keith Knipling.)

I pulled ahead of Frank again going up the Camping Climb –
those endless hours of 12% treadmill climbing were really coming in handy!
Jordan Chang finally caught up and rapidly gapped me. I stopped for some quick
power-hiking a couple of times, but for the most part it was run, run, run.

At the Camping Gap Aid Station I caught back up with Jordan
and left ahead of him. I crested the climb and cruised along the grassy roads,
frequently looking back, waiting for Jordan to catch up. Matt and Brad Revenis
were well up on me, way out of sight. So I ran through the night alone in 3rd
place. Near Mile 20, well into the climb up Onion Mountain I was caught by Paul
Jacobs. Before we crested, I hopped off into the woods to take care of some
business for a few minutes. Two more headlights streamed by. Just like that, I
was in 6th place.

I finished the last few minutes of the climb, then headed
down the rocky, technical Promise Land trail to the temporary Overstreet Creek
Aid Station -- moved back from Headforemost because the Blue Ridge Parkway was
shut down because of the storm … the storm that still hadn’t produced a single
snow flake. I don’t like this stretch of trail in the daylight at the end of
Promise Land, so I certainly did not enjoy it in the middle of the night.

At the Aid Station I caught up with Frank, who was one of
the headlights that passed me a couple miles earlier, and quickly jumped ahead
of him. As I rolled out of the station, I could hear John Andersen coming in –
man is that guy chatty. I yelled that I wasn’t waiting for the two of them, but
that they needed to catch up. I had imagined this race starting out with John
and I running together, and hopefully trying to break each other on the climbs,
so I was eager for him to catch up and start a stretch of hard, competitive
running. But I felt good on the climb up Headforemost and their headlamps
drifted off behind me more and more. I patiently chased a light ahead of me, no
more than a minute up at times, but I never caught up.

I arrived at Headforemost, the ghost of an Aid Station, on
my splits to the minute – 4:07. I was pumped! This is going to be a great day! The temps had dropped, the snow
began to fall, and I was no longer concerned about ditching my tights at the
next Aid Station. It was turning into a perfect night out on the trail!

Then things started to turn. A sense of nausea and a loss of
appetite had been building for some time. I reached for my 4th Huma
gel, gagged upon seeing that it was Chocolate, then just barely managed to gulp
down an Apple Cinnamon instead. My nutrition plan was now on the verge of crumbling
… and I still had over 40 miles of running left. Moreover, the newly falling
snow was messing with my visibility and it was starting to give me a headache –
light bounced off every snowflake and it was as if I were running through an
endless parade of white confetti.

I managed to make good time on my descent into Jennings
Creek while battling a whole-body fatigue trying to fight with the competing nausea
and hunger pangs. My spirits were lifted when I miraculously made it through
Miles 27.25 to 28 without getting lost for the first time in 3 years – the
forest thins out and any hint of a trail all but disappears. But a mile later,
on a rocky downhill I was startled by an owl, jerked my head around to look for
a headlamp that wasn’t there, tripped on a rock, and went skidding down the trail.
I tried to get up and buckled back to the ground. I gave up and laid there for
at least a minute, with my head resting on a fluffy pile of leaves, waiting for
John and Frank to come help me up. My knees took the brunt of it and a good
deal of flexing and rubbing was needed to get back up and head down the trail.
Surprisingly, I was still all alone when I worked my way back to a shuffle.

(Accurate recreation of my Jennings Creek fall.)

The final mile into Jennings Creek Aid Station, I spotted
the guy in front of me and picked it up to an honest pace. Sophie Speidel and
Annie Stanley helped me with my drop bag. I let them know I’d probably be
puking when they saw me again in three hours, and then I was off. My pace was
slow as I started the next climb while battling to down another gel.

Somewhere between Miles 30 and 40 I also became tremendously
over-hydrated. I needed to down my Tailwind for calories, but it was cold
enough that my body was hardly sweating and retaining too much liquid. Nearly
every mile I had to stop and pee. At some point I found myself catching up with
4th place, who happened to be Nick Pedatella. I caught him over and
over again, like the friggin’ Groundhog Day of running. Each time I’d catch him
I’d immediately stop and pee. I can only imagine what he must have been
thinking to have a competitor repeatedly catch up and back off – who the hell is this guy?!

I felt good climbing up Little Cove Mountain and ran the
entire time. At one point I could see Nick making the turn to the Aid Station.
I checked my watch and chugged along. 5 minutes elapsed by the time I got up
there. I looked back down the mountain and didn’t see any other lights – John
and Frank were at least 5 minutes back. I was in No Man’s Land.

The Aid Station was still getting set up when I arrived. I
desperately needed calories and asked for potatoes. A dude handed me a whole
potato, in foil, and freezing cold! Props to you, volunteer dude! The cold
didn’t bother me, but I felt bad taking a whole damn potato, so I asked if we
could cut it up to just take some of it. Fast forward through 2 minutes of an
entire aid station digging around to pull out a pocket knife and I was back on
my way with a handful of potato slices!

Still in the dark and still on my splits, I made good work
of the smooth downhill before the Devil Trail. The snow continued to fall and I
was overwhelmed with a sense of calm. Snow, trails, solitude … this is why I
run!

(Jazz hands! Courtesy of Keith Knipling.)

My memory fails me, but if I hadn’t been catching up with Nick before, I
certainly was now. Daylight came as we entered the den of thigh-high leaves
that comprises the Devil Trail. I quickly found my rhythm, just like last year
– slow the pace to a recovery jog effort and throw a little bounce into your
step and you just might be nimble enough to make it out of the Devil Trail with
only a handful of falls! Nick was a fish out of water and I blew past him.

I cruised into Bearwallow Aid Station a few seconds ahead of
Nick, perfectly on my splits at 8:10. I was again assisted by Sophie, Annie,
and others. Nick left ahead of me as I spent some time at the Aid Station,
gathering up tater tots and freshly made cheese quesadillas. I was way down on
my calories and this did wonders for my spirits. I was ready to blast through
the final 20 miles!

… Then I started up the climb out of Bearwallow...

I don’t
think this climb has a name. It needs one. I’m gonna start calling it Horton’s
Revenge. I always forget how long it is – 2 miles and 1000’ of climb – and how
technical it can be. Instead of cruising and catching up with Nick, he climbed
well out of my sight. The snow and rocks and leaves were killing me. I couldn’t
get traction. I couldn’t make progress. I was grinding to a halt. Most long
ultras will present at least one major challenge … this climb was mine … and I
wasn’t doing a very good job of overcoming it.

(Gonna go out on a limb and guess this is right at the low point of my race. Courtesy of Keith Knipling.)

Close to the top of the climb I looked back to find John
Andersen’s smirking face. If I didn’t let out an F-bomb, I was certainly
thinking it. How the hell did he catch
me?! I wasn’t going to just stop and let him catch up, so I drove on. I hit
my stride through the ins-and-outs along the mountainside – it’s my favorite
stretch of trail on the entire course ... smooth, flowing, runnable, with tremendous valley views (that is, if you're not bogged down in a cloud of snow). Things began to look up. Moreover,
I had somehow dropped John entirely.

I rolled into Bobblet’s Gap Aid Station as they were still
getting set up, so they had no food (potatoes) to devour. I dilly-dallied to
let a volunteer help me grab some PB crackers out of my pack so I could get
some calories in. As I started to leave, I saw John approaching. I checked my
watch and did some math. It was 9:31. I probably lost 10+ minutes on that
climb! I was trucking it to the finish at this point last year and it still took
me 2:30 from Bobblet’s to Camp Bethel. I just had a terrible climb in the snow,
calories were becoming a problem, hydration was a mess. If the next few miles
of trail had snow, it would take a Herculean effort to break 12:00, never mind
the now impossible 11:40. So I waited for John to sort himself out and then
blurted out: “I’m not sure we can make it
in under 12. Wanna just run in together?” He happily obliged.

(Trying to calculate my finishing time at Bobblet's Gap.)

Now let’s rewind for a sec…

Remember when I said it took me 2:30 to complete the final
stretch last year? Well that’s what I thought at the time. I was too mentally
defeated to pull out my time sheet from my pocket which had last year’s splits
written on it. And so I made the terrible error of thinking I might not make it
in under 12:00. In reality, I covered the final miles in 2:20 last year. I was
literally 1 minute per mile faster through 50 miles and if I’d just maintained
last year’s pace at the end, I could’ve finished in around 11:50. But my memory
failed me and I messed up my math. I’m an idiot!

Anyways, back to it…

The Ultra Duo who shared literally 100+ miles in races last
year was finally back together! All it took was abandoning all competitive
desires and, well, kind of just giving up on life for a little while.

We jogged through the Forever Trail, walking entirely too
much of the inclines. At one point, Frank came barreling through. I briefly had
a mind to pick up the pace and run with him – I’d give my odds of being able to
keep pace at better than 50/50 – but my spirits were broken … I’d abandoned all
hope of a sub-12, and at that point a 12:01 meant the same to me as a 12:31
just so long as I didn’t slip out of the Top 10. And so, Frank disappeared into
the distance and I sauntered on with John.

Jaunting into the final Aid Station, I had more than enough
supplies to make it the next hour to the finish – I’d consumed maybe 10 ounces
of liquid in the past 2 hours, still trying to fend off over-hydration. So I
was well stocked up. But I stopped to stick with John, who wanted some soup. I
don’t drink soup during races, I think it’s weird. But I asked for some because
I was done caring about this race. The muscles were fine, the mind and spirit
were toast. Another runner came right on through and both John and I just
shrugged our shoulders and kept standing around.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(What's that? Somebody's passing me? Meh...)

We eventually left, and did our best to keep to our promise
of walking Every. Damn. Step. of the final climb. There were a couple short
spurts of jogging in there, but we were largely successful in Operation:
Maximize the Laziness.

At the top of the climb, yet another runner passed us. I had
slipped from 4th to 8th/9th in 17 miles. Ouch!
My legs felt good so I tried to run just behind him. John wasn’t keeping up,
but was doing his best to ward off any other runners coming by. I eventually
took over the dude in front of me, but firmly let him know I wasn’t in the mood
to drag race -- if he could keep up, there’d be no race to the line from me.

My legs turned over faster and faster. I was nearing sub-6
effort as I hopped onto the road that would take me down to the camp. In the
distance I saw the guy who passed me at the final Aid Station, so I picked it
up even more and quickly overtook him. My watch beeped: a 6:02 mile. I
maintained the effort with surprising ease and cruised into the finish in 12:21
for 6th place and an 18 minute PR. Not bad for practically
walk-jogging the final third of the race.

Hellgate demands introspection and self-examination. Am I
satisfied with this year of running? Where have I improved and where have I fallen
short? What weaknesses in my skillset has the course exposed? Where will I find
motivation for next year and what goals shall I set for myself?

So, am I satisfied with how Hellgate went down this year?
Yes. And no. ... And that’s okay.

The first 8 hours of the race I performed EXACTLY how I
expected … I put myself into a position to achieve what I knew I was capable of
achieving. More so than a great finishing place or a competitive race, I run to seek affirmation of my abilities, to test myself, to know
myself, to gauge where I am as a runner, where I came from, and where I might
soon go. And the first 47 miles of Hellgate gave me exactly that.

On the other hand, I just plain gave up at the end. I hit
one snag in the race and refused to put in the effort to right the ship.
Instead, I sought comfort in complacency and a companion to drag down with me.
Don’t get me wrong, sharing trail miles was great, and I don’t regret it
this time around … but I was in a reinforcing duo of despair, and the next time John and I cross paths I’d rather agree to gut it out and push each other to the edge
of our abilities. We’re too talented to ask anything less of ourselves.

All told, I left 30 minutes on the course after Mile 53
compared with last year, to say nothing of the time lost climbing Horton’s
Revenge. I should have finished under 12:00. I should have been in 3rd
place, or even 2nd, at the end of the day. But I wasn’t. All because
I couldn’t adapt to a little curveball and I refused to embrace and tap into
what limited competitive drive I have. So next year I’ll be training harder,
getting faster, and working on harnessing a more competitive spirit. If I can
ho-hum my way to a 6th place finish at Hellgate, I owe it to myself
and to everyone else toeing the line with me to suck it up, grit it out, and
embrace a more competitive attitude.